1. FRANCINE MATARAZZO
new work/reminiscences
Through memory we hold onto that which we love. It
provides a conversation with the past. But, there is no
perfection in memory, no wholeness. It comes in shreds
and scraps, bits and shards. It allows only glimmers of
yesterday. I call these works reminiscences. Although I
made them in my studio in Hollywood, they were created
from recollections of places far away, places where I
have lived and places where I have traveled. Morocco,
Tunisia, Jordan, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan,
India. In this show I focus on my time in Morocco and
Tunisia. In bits and pieces I remember the tastes, the
textures, the sounds, the smells, and from these
recollections I have created keepsakes. Torn paper,
sections of old drawings, remnants of canvas, rice
paper dipped in washes, crushed bits of pastel,
gouache, watercolor, pencil -- glued down, dripped,
drawn, blotted, scratched, painted over. Memories not
whole and memories not perfect but reinvented in
collage and dressed in brilliant hues, they give me my
conversation with the past. I invite others to share in
this conversation and to experience in its dialogue the
beauty and poetry I discovered in these distant lands.
It is in this spirit I make my art.
FRANCINE MATARAZZO LOS ANGELES, 2009